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3232103180943City’s Housing Offers Not Cutting It for Homeless Fire Victimhttp://missionlocal.org/2016/12/citys-housing-offers-not-cutting-it-for-homeless-fire-victim/
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A former go-go dancer and taxicab robber who had hoped to start life afresh at the Graywood Hotel is the last tenant displaced by the June fire who remains on the streets. Michelle Thompson’s story demonstrates how difficult it is to place some clients who resist housing because of what they have to leave behind: their personal belongings, friends and pets. Yes, there is a deficit of housing for...]]>A former go-go dancer and taxicab robber who had hoped to start life afresh at the Graywood Hotel is the last tenant displaced by the June fire who remains on the streets.

Michelle Thompson’s story demonstrates how difficult it is to place some clients who resist housing because of what they have to leave behind: their personal belongings, friends and pets.

“I’ve been on my own, struggling as a street person, but never homeless. I managed,” she said.

Thompson’s road to homelessness is one marked by trauma and at times – as demonstrated by her recent displacement by a five-alarm fire from the Graywood Hotel, the SRO at 3308 Mission St. where she lived for six months – calamities that were out of her control.

Thompson shrugs at her fate. “I’ve been on my own since I was 12,” said Thompson, who is now in her 40s and spent nearly half of her life in prison. The Seattle native ran away from home as a child to escape abuse and never looked back.

Her case is also particularly troublesome because she now suffers from cirrhosis of the liver and State 4 hepatitis C. “I’m dying,” she said.

Her status as a fire victim put her at the top of the list for housing in June – but even that stature failed to end in a new place to live. Since July, Thompson has been living in a tent on 15th and Bryant streets with her dog.

At the Graywood, Thompson shared a room with her former partner, a U.S. Marine Veteran. The two met shortly after Thompson was released from prison, and Thompson thought that she had at last found some stability.

But during the weeks after the fire, Thompson said, the relationship quickly turned hostile.

“We were fighting – I walked away. I knew what was best for myself, being on parole,” she said – shortly before she moved into the Graywood, Thompson had served 18 years in prison for a string of armed robberies, she said.

After the fire, Thompson’s case was referred to the Human Services Agency, responsible for placing the fire victims in temporary housing. Thompson’s partner was quickly able to find an apartment through his Veteran Assistance benefits, and Thompson believed her name was put on his lease.

Thompson asked to be housed separately, but said she was told that her placement was “only for a family of two” and that she would need to stay with her ex.

“I’m not gonna be with someone for a place to stay,” she said.

Ben Amyes, Emergency Services Coordinator at the city’s Human Services Agency, said that Thompson got the wrong information. “We were housing them separately. We were never going try to ask them to live together because they didn’t want to,” he said.

Several weeks later, the agency offered her a single room in an SRO in the Tenderloin, said Amyes. But, by that time, someone had given Thompson a dog and she refused to give it up.

“When it comes time to house her, she had a [new] partner and a dog, and that was not part of the original appeal,” said Amyes.

When she arrived at the Tenderloin SRO that the city placed her in, she said “they also brought the pound with them.”

“They expected…they wanted me to give him up,” she said, sobbing violently. She refused. “I know what it’s like to feel abandonment. The only thing I could do is get a tent – So I did.”

Randy Quezada, communications manager at the Department on Homelessness and Supportive Housing, said that hanging on to pets was not uncommon. “The bond between people and their animals is significant especially for people who have experienced trauma,” he said. Nevertheless, he added, pets “ are challenging in traditional shelters.”

Quezada said that his department “doesn’t give up” on difficult cases like Thompon’s.

“Every situation is a little different. It means we have to find the right opportunity to connect them to resources,” he said, adding that the Navigation Center at 1950 Mission St., a transitional shelter where clients are permitted to enter with pets and human partners, accommodates those with special circumstances.

But Thompson said that she has not been offered a bed at the center, and that she was told by outreach workers that she “wasn’t homeless long enough,” and doesn’t fit the criteria.

“But I’m a disaster [victim], shouldn’t I have first priority?” she said.

Most recently, Thompson said that she’s contacted an “old associate” who has offered to rent a room to her, though the offer seems conditional. “I hope he doesn’t want more,” she said.

On the streets, the same pattern emerged – men who tout themselves her friends and offer to protect her belongings from theft then “catch feelings.”

“They say they’ll watch your stuff when you leave and we have eachother’s back in the encampment,” she said, referring to her fellow campers. “What happens is they say it’s strictly a friendship thing, but they all catch feelings.”

Amyes said that Thompson is still eligible for the city’s subsidized rent program in which the city will cover her rent up to $1,400. But, like other tenants from the Graywood, “she has to find a place for herself, a landlord that is willing to take her.”

That has not happened. Instead she finds herself overwhelmed. Life on the streets isn’t easy – she has been robbed on multiple occasions, lost her medication, and her cell phone has been disconnected for some two weeks.

Thompson said she needs help and called the city’s stipulation of finding her own housing after disaster “unfair.”

“By no means do I not want housing, I still need housing,” she said. “I’m tired, I’ve lived hell. Now I’m waiting for heaven, or something better. I’m willing to do whatever I gotta do.”

]]>http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/planes-para-monumento-a-nieto-alcanza-la-audiencia-de-la-junta-de-supervisores/feed/0309502UCSF Research Building at SF General Moves Aheadhttp://missionlocal.org/2016/12/ucsf-research-building-at-sf-general-moves-ahead/
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A 175,000-square-foot research center to be built by UCSF on what is currently a parking lot at San Francisco General Hospital is moving closer to completing its application process, though the groundbreaking date has been somewhat delayed. The research facility would house workspace for some 800 UCSF employees who have thus far conducted their work at SF General in older, seismically unsafe buildings around the general hospital campus. It is...]]>A 175,000-square-foot research center to be built by UCSF on what is currently a parking lot at San Francisco General Hospital is moving closer to completing its application process, though the groundbreaking date has been somewhat delayed.

The research facility would house workspace for some 800 UCSF employees who have thus far conducted their work at SF General in older, seismically unsafe buildings around the general hospital campus. It is estimated to cost around $188 million. Earlier estimates for when the project would break ground indicated construction might begin in 2017 – a UCSF spokesperson now estimates that timeline might be pushed to early 2018.

City real estate staff have submitted an application for approval of the ground lease between the hospital and UCSF under city’s General Plan. In early 2017, the Board of Supervisors will again vote on the ground lease and disposition agreement, which the Health Commission unanimously approved earlier this week.

To mitigate the effect of removing a hospital parking lot, UCSF will reimburse the city $10 million, that the Municipal Transit Agency and the Department of Public Health can then put toward expanding an existing parking garage for the hospital and making transit improvements in the area.

Brent Andrew, a spokesperson for General Hospital, emphasized the value of keeping the UCSF researchers, who according to UCSF rules must work in seismically safe buildings by 2019, on campus.

“When the doctors and other UC employees are needed to deliver clinical care, they need to be proximate, they need to be here on campus, to do that,” Andrew said. “It’s critical for us. We’re definitely supportive of the plan to build new seismically safe and state-of-the-art facilities here.”

]]>http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/ucsf-research-building-at-sf-general-moves-ahead/feed/0309493Sutter Health Opens on Valencia with Small Retailhttp://missionlocal.org/2016/12/sutter-health-opens-on-valencia-with-small-retail/
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Sutter Pacific Medical Foundation opened a new clinic on 20th and Valencia streets earlier this month. The clinic employs acupuncturists, chiropractors, message therapists, and nutritionists in addition to primary care practicioners. The clinic also has lab and x-ray services on site as well as specialty physicians should a patient need them. A shop within the clinic, the Institute for Health and Healing, opened on November 29 as part of the foundation’s...]]>Sutter Pacific Medical Foundation opened a new clinic on 20th and Valencia streets earlier this month. The clinic employs acupuncturists, chiropractors, message therapists, and nutritionists in addition to primary care practicioners.

The clinic also has lab and x-ray services on site as well as specialty physicians should a patient need them.

A shop within the clinic, the Institute for Health and Healing, opened on November 29 as part of the foundation’s integrative medicine department. All of its proceeds will go to the clinic’s patient assistant fund.

Like its corresponding locations in Greenbrae, Santa Rosa, Sacramento, and other parts of San Francisco (all located within Sutter clinics) the Institute sells supplements, books, jewelry, “healing gifts,” and other fair trade and eco-friendly items “promoting well-being in mind, body and spirit.” The selection of supplements is slated to expand when the clinic itself becomes more established.

The Institute for Health and Healing is providing massages and nutritional counseling free of charge until the end of December.

]]>http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/sutter-health-opens-on-valencia-with-small-retail/feed/0309272The Navigation Center: A Haven for the Determinedhttp://missionlocal.org/2016/12/the-navigation-center-a-haven-for-the-determined/
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Mission Street’s Navigation Center, the city’s first, is lauded for being a low-barrier shelter, a place where street dwellers can come as they are and have all their needs met. For those determined to get off the streets, it can be the pathway to finally getting housing, but others may fall through the cracks as the center is also working with some of the most difficult cases. In principle, the...]]>Mission Street’s Navigation Center, the city’s first, is lauded for being a low-barrier shelter, a place where street dwellers can come as they are and have all their needs met. For those determined to get off the streets, it can be the pathway to finally getting housing, but others may fall through the cracks as the center is also working with some of the most difficult cases.

In principle, the Navigation Center moves people off the streets by allowing the partners, possessions and pets that sometimes bar homeless individuals from traditional shelters elsewhere in the city. Lately, its referrals come primarily from city workers clearing encampments in the Mission District.

Navigation Center. Photo by Lola M. Chavez

The spaces at the Mission Street center, all 75 of them, are coveted, because the center has a reputation for flexibility and getting clients, if not housed, then at least better prepared to deal with the system. Some 79 percent of clients who have come through the Navigation Center had a “stable” outcome. In reality, this means that 25 percent have gotten some kind of housing and 54 percent have gotten a ticket home. The remaining 21 percent have gone to “temporary” or “unstable” exits.

The Navigation Center is sharply different from the city’s two major shelters offering more than 300 beds each. These high-capacity shelters, the ones that aren’t set up specifically for youth, women, or families, usually prohibit pets, will separate couples who don’t have children, and bar clients from bringing in their belongings.

Moreover, the Navigation Center offers meals, showers, and laundry around the clock, unlike shelters, where meals and other activities are scheduled, along with curfews and quiet hours.

In an October interview, Department of Homelessness Director Jeff Kositsky called the Navigation Centers, of which the city now has two and is set to open another next year, “shelters as they should be.”

A Welcoming Place

Navigation Center kitchen area. Photo by Lola M. Chavez

On a Friday afternoon in December, it is quiet and warm inside the center, a stark contrast to the street outside on Mission near the 16th Street corridor. There boom boxes blast salsa, groups of street dwellers laugh and talk and cars and buses rumbling through the nearby intersection.

Inside a former portable classroom now outfitted with a large television mounted on the wall next to psychedelic donated art, Miguel Hernandez is eating pancakes and sausages from a black plastic microwaveable Meals on Wheels tray. Three other residents are in the nearly-empty room, which is mostly silent except for the compressed blare of the television.

Hernandez, born in Cuba, arrived in the United States in 1980 and though he declined to go into how he ended up without a home, he has been staying in the Navigation Center for nearly six months.

He rises at 5:30 a.m. every morning from a cot in another former classroom he shares with 14 others – each classroom at the 75-bed center houses 15. He eats breakfast, then makes his way to Labor Ready, a jobs program with branches on 26th Street and in the Portola. He makes a little bit of money there to pay his phone bill and other small necessities.

Navigation Center, sleeping area. Photo by Lola M. Chavez

“This is a good place compared to others – my friends have been in others and they say this is the best one,” Hernandezsaid, referring to the more traditional shelters. Still, “I hope to get out of here pretty soon. Thank God things are going well.”

Staff at the center have helped Hernandez access financial assistance, which he hopes will enable him to get an apartment of his own. The Navigation Center’s high ratio of staff to clients makes individualized attention like this possible, from case managers who help with things like getting IDs and General Assistance benefits, to nurses who visit regularly, to Animal Care & Control staff who come to make sure residents’ pets are up to date on vaccines. There are even recurring DMV visit days.

Later in the afternoon Hernandez, sat and talked with Enrique Chumpitaz on the wood-paneled benches outside the Navigation Center, soaking up the afternoon rays of sun in the December chill. Inside, the deserted but sunny courtyard slowly attracted five or so residents.

Navigation Center, kitchen/common area. Photo by Lola M. Chavez

Chumpitaz has been there nine months.

“For me, it’s like the army, high school and jail all combined,” Chumpitaz said of the Navigation Center after finishing his pancake lunch in the recreation room. “I am 75 years old. This is one experience in my life. Maybe I will write a book about this.”

Fortunately, Chumpitaz is about to move into a senior housing facility on 18th and Alabama streets. He never lived on the streets, but paid for rooms in SROs by the week. He arrived at the Navigation Center through a referral from the Mission Neighborhood Resource Center on Capp Street. Now, with a note from his doctor saying an SRO isn’t appropriate for him, he’s getting routed to the senior center.

Wayne Henderson has completed his journey of about four months through the Navigation Center, having previously lived on the street. Unlike many others, he already had an ID, he was receiving financial assistance, and his Medicaid was secured.

Navigation Center storage space. Photo by Lola M. Chavez

He just needed a place to go, and the center helped him find it. Within three weeks he was offered a space at the Mission Hotel SRO on 16th and South Van Ness streets – but turned it down because the rent would have been too high.

“I wasn’t going to give them 70 percent of my income to stay at the Mission Hotel, so I turned it down,” he said.

So staff found him an alternative. Henderson now lives at the Henry Hotel, a former SRO turned supportive housing center, and will stay there for a year. If he is still in good standing at the end, he said, he will be transferred to a studio apartment of his own.

“Overall my stay there, it was good,” he said. “I really appreciated the staff, they were very welcoming and very helpful.”

Unstructured and Nonspecific

Of course even the Navigation Center isn’t the answer for everyone.

For some, even with its low barrier to entry, the center might not be tailored enough, said Henderson.

“I’m sleeping next to a woman who’s in her 70s, and she’s got her oxygen tube and she cannot receive the services and assistance that she needs from this one-size-fits-all thing,” he said. “There are people in there who have some mental impairment issues going on, and just lumping everyone in one place, I don’t think that’s right.”

Others who aren’t as prepared or driven as Henderson, Chumpitaz or Hernandez may be less successful.

Navigation Center laundry room. Photo by Lola M. Chavez

Days at the Navigation Center are structured – if they are at all – around the clients’ appointments. The center is setup to accommodate these appointments, be they medical or paperwork related, on-site to make it easier for clients to attend them.

Other than that, there are sometimes activities, but a site manager, John Ouertani, didn’t specify what those might be.

“We keep ‘em engaged,” he said.

During his stay, Henderson said he has seen people miss those very appointments the Navigation Center made it easy for them to reach.

“A lot of folks there do not make a lot of their appointments for one reason or another,” he said. Sometimes he would ask fellow residents why they missed their appointments and would hear back, “They don’t tell me what I wanna hear,” he said.

Though staff try to be understanding and helpful, habitual drug use at the center can also result in being asked to leave.

For still others, the Navigation Center is not quite enough to keep them off the streets, even while they have a bed there.

Still on the Streets

Navigation Center courtyard. Photo by Lola M. Chavez

Wearing a skirt and boots despite the chill, Wendy Glass breezed through the recreation room to pick up a few meal packs, then sat in the courtyard to eat them. She has been at the center for about a month, and found the staff capable and commendable.

They recently helped her secure her birth certificate and she hopes they will help her find an SRO room.

“You can tell it’s not about the money, this is something they’re dedicated to,” she said referring to the staff. “They have a passion for it.”

Glass, for example, isn’t spending her whole day at the shelter – she has things to attend to outside. She usually gets her meals elsewhere and sells goods on the sidewalk to get by, between two and four days a week depending on how money is. She also says many at the center store belongings out on the streets.

“A lot of us don’t sleep here…you can’t just abandon [tents]. We come here for appointments, to clean and shower, then check on our stuff,” she said. “Otherwise someone steals our shit. The city steals it from us too.”

Navigation Center showers. Photo by Lola M. Chavez

Another resident, sitting on a bench in the sunny courtyard and folding a letter from the shelter informing him of his upcoming shelter date, says he does the same. Though he didn’t specify a reason for his discharge, he did say that he is more of a drop in client.

“I don’t sleep here…I have stuff out there,” he said. He’s tired of being homeless and likes the center, but isn’t sure what to do next.

“I’ve been on the streets for eight years, it’s hard to break the cycle. This is what I do.”

Henderson said this, too, happened during his stay as well.

“A lot of folks there were placed there but they were still in the encampments. Either their partner didn’t get in or [they did and] there was some kind of rule violation,” he said. Or, “People had excess of stuff so they have storage…They had a lot of stuff they had accumulated over years of being on the streets.”

Though allowing possessions is one of the navigation center’s distinguishing characteristics, Glass said it’s not always possible for the center to store everything a resident may come in with.

Randy Quezada, a spokesperson for the Department of Homelessness, said while the shelter does try to accommodate belongings and doesn’t have a specific limit to how much an individual can bring, some come in with hoarding disorders, or people may simply want more space.

It can also be hard to adjust to a new lifestyle, he said.

“To the extent that you may have some people who will slip out and go back to the tents at night, that happens, and that’s part of the engagement process. I don’t think it’s widespread,” Quezada said. “For some people … that have been living on the streets a long time, it’s hard to re-acclimate to being indoors.”

Dog crates that are available at Navigation Center. Photo by Lola M. Chavez

After all, the shelter’s main feature has been its ability to offer residents autonomy and flexibility.

There is no curfew. The only requirement for presence, said Ouertani, is that residents be there at least every 72 hours. Though he did not address the practice of clients staying in their tents, he did acknowledge the strength of past connections.

“You’re still associated with whatever you have out there. We’re aware of that,” he said. When it comes to the Navigation Center and moving through it by the rules, “The key word is flexibility. It’s also us learning, too.”

]]>http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/the-navigation-center-a-haven-for-the-determined/feed/0309471SNAP: Retrofit Foreverhttp://missionlocal.org/2016/12/snap-retrofit-forever/
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]]>http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/snap-retrofit-forever/feed/0309409How to Help the Homeless: A Bay Area Guidehttp://missionlocal.org/2016/12/how-to-help-the-homeless-a-bay-area-guide/
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This week, Mission Local is participating in a Bay-Area-wide push to cover homelessness. You may remember this project from a similar effort in June, in which we produced stories about where homeless people’s property goes, a couple displaced by a fire who lived in their car for months, and a homeless family. This week we have brought you responses to Proposition Q from those living on the streets and an update from the ongoing saga over...]]>This week, Mission Local is participating in a Bay-Area-wide push to cover homelessness. You may remember this project from a similar effort in June, in which we produced stories about where homeless people’s property goes, a couple displaced by a fire who lived in their car for months, and a homeless family.

You can see a collection of work being produced by more than 80 local news outlets here and read the Chronicle’s letter to readers on the project here.

For many readers, stories about homelessness inspire them to help, but it can be difficult to figure out the best way to do so. The San Francisco Chronicle, in collaboration with the other SF Homeless Project news organizations, put together this list of organizations and the non-monetary needs they have if you are interested in donating your time or goods. You can view the formatted table here.

]]>http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/how-to-help-the-homeless-a-bay-area-guide/feed/0309447Young Woman Shot, Killed on South Van Nesshttp://missionlocal.org/2016/12/woman-shot-killed-on-south-van-ness/
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Police report that a 21-year-old woman was shot and killed by a man on South Van Ness Avenue early Wednesday morning, the second homicide in the Mission District in the last week. The woman was named Lisa Williams, according to the Medical Examiner, which said her city of residence could not be determined. Police released little information, pending further investigation, but said the shooting occurred at 2:47 a.m. on South...]]>Police report that a 21-year-old woman was shot and killed by a man on South Van Ness Avenue early Wednesday morning, the second homicide in the Mission District in the last week.

The woman was named Lisa Williams, according to the Medical Examiner, which said her city of residence could not be determined. Police released little information, pending further investigation, but said the shooting occurred at 2:47 a.m. on South Van Ness Avenue between 19th and 20th streets and involved a man of unknown age, a handgun, and a black car.

Williams was taken to the hospital, police reported, where she was pronounced dead. The police have not made an arrest.

A homeless man who camps near the intersection of 18th Street and South Van Ness Avenue told Mission Local that he initially heard two gun shots. He was awake, he said, because there were “working women hanging out” on the block where he sleeps. He said two women stood near his tent before he heard gunshots and were “trying to make contact with their pimp.” After the gunshots, the man said, “three others came running after the shots.”

“It was very close, because I heard it,” he said about the gunfire. “After the first two, more shots followed.”

Four residents on the block said that they heard gunshots. A resident who declined to give his name said that he heard “a lot of shots” and “a group of girls” screaming. He said that his sister, who was also in the house at the time of the shooting, saw a man fleeing the block shortly after the shots were fired.

Another resident said that she called the police after hearing five gunshots and added that there was a police unit stationed on 20th Street that was able to respond quickly.

The shooting follows that of Jermaine Jackson Jr., an employee with the Department of Public Works, on November 30 at the corner of 25th and Vermont streets. There is no indication the two are related.

Williams’s shooting is the seventh homicide in the Mission District this year.

]]>http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/woman-shot-killed-on-south-van-ness/feed/5309448SNAP: Orange School, Grey Schoolhttp://missionlocal.org/2016/12/snap-orange-school-grey-school/
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]]>http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/snap-orange-school-grey-school/feed/0309403Campos Presses Mayor For Immigrant Legal Defense Fundhttp://missionlocal.org/2016/12/campos-presses-mayor-for-immigrant-legal-defense-fund/
http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/campos-presses-mayor-for-immigrant-legal-defense-fund/#commentsWed, 07 Dec 2016 01:57:33 +0000http://missionlocal.org/?p=309435
At a rally held Tuesday at noon on City Hall steps, Supervisor David Campos joined non-profit organizations and the Public Defender’s Office for the second time in a week to push the mayor to find $5 million for immigrant legal defense within next year’s budget. The money would be divided almost equally among community non-profits and the Public Defender’s Office to hire attorneys and staff to assist those facing deportation...]]>At a rally held Tuesday at noon on City Hall steps, Supervisor David Campos joined non-profit organizations and the Public Defender’s Office for the second time in a week to push the mayor to find $5 million for immigrant legal defense within next year’s budget.

The money would be divided almost equally among community non-profits and the Public Defender’s Office to hire attorneys and staff to assist those facing deportation — a point of contention, since Mayor Ed Lee seems unwilling to further fund the Public Defender’s Office.

“I want to be honest, the biggest sticking point right now from what we hear from the mayor’s office is they want to leave the public defender out,” Campos said. “And what’s ironic is that the very community that they’re saying they support, those community leaders, lawyers, are saying we need the public defender.”

A spokesperson for the mayor said community-based organizations did not explicitly take a stance on Campos’s proposal, but said non-profits are already doing the work the proposal seeks to fund.

“The administration supports funding community-based organizations, who are already doing this work and have track-record of success, to expand their services to deal with the current and anticipated needs,” wrote the mayor’s spokesperson, Deirdre Hussey, in an email.

San Francisco faces a $119 million budget deficit in the next fiscal year, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, and $848 million in the next five years.

At Tuesday’s press conference, two immigrant rights lawyers said the Public Defender’s Office was the only agency with the ability to adequately defend immigrants against deportation.

“The public defender’s expertise and focus on the defense of immigrants is so important,” said Lara Kiswani of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center. The organization handles legal defense for hundreds of clients a year, but Kiswani said its attorneys can only handle about one or two deportation cases a year.

Francisco Ugarte, the public defender who would presumably lead the team of lawyers within the Public Defender’s Office, said the office had the knowledge and staff to protect immigrants from deportations under a Donald Trump administration.

Ugarte, who has worked with non-profits previously, said they have other responsibilities like outreach and education and cannot devote as much time to legal proceedings. Only the Public Defender’s Office, he said, has the requisite experience in the justice system.

Luis Angel, an undocumented immigrant and a lawyer, claimed that Mayor Lee had privately spoken to him of supporting beneficiaries of the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects undocumented immigrants who arrived as minors.

Angel said Lee’s support did not extend to detained immigrants and that he was being narrow in supporting DACA beneficiaries.

“This sows confusion and division in our community,” Angel said. “It reinforces the xenophobic ideas that there are people who are not deserving.”

Lee’s spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on that claim.

The legislation is unlikely to succeed unless Supervisor London Breed, the board president, agrees to fast-track the legislation for a vote before the newly elected supervisors take their seats. Breed told the Chronicle she will not do so unless Campos and the mayor come to an agreement about what the policy should look like.

One way or another, those at Tuesday’s rally agreed, having a lawyer is often the key to success in immigration proceedings.

Yanci Lopez, Luis Angel’s client, said at the rally that her husband was detained by immigration officials shortly after the election for a minor offense that occurred in 2012. Her husband is still in jail, and she is working with a non-profit attorney on his case.

“For me, it’s very difficult to talk to my child to tell them why their father is not coming home,” she said. “Fortunately, we have a lawyer who is supporting us very much. But we have to support the families who are the suffering the same as my family and I.”

]]>http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/campos-presses-mayor-for-immigrant-legal-defense-fund/feed/2309435El Rio to Host Fundraiser in Honor of Oakland Fire Victimshttp://missionlocal.org/2016/12/el-rio-to-hold-fundraiser-in-honor-of-oakland-fire-victims/
http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/el-rio-to-hold-fundraiser-in-honor-of-oakland-fire-victims/#respondTue, 06 Dec 2016 22:08:11 +0000http://missionlocal.org/?p=309425
A fundraiser to benefit the families of the victims of the Ghost Ship Oakland fire on Friday will be held at El Rio, located at 3158 Mission St., on December 7. The show will feature a variety of DJs and bands with a sliding scale $5 cover charge at the door – with all proceeds and donations going to the Fire Relief Fund. Featured DJs Hard French with DJ Carnita and...]]>A fundraiser to benefit the families of the victims of the Ghost Ship Oakland fire on Friday will be held at El Rio, located at 3158 Mission St., on December 7. The show will feature a variety of DJs and bands with a sliding scale $5 cover charge at the door – with all proceeds and donations going to the Fire Relief Fund.

]]>http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/el-rio-to-hold-fundraiser-in-honor-of-oakland-fire-victims/feed/0309425SNAP: Vanguard Rockinghttp://missionlocal.org/2016/12/snap-vanguard-rocking/
http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/snap-vanguard-rocking/#respondTue, 06 Dec 2016 21:07:21 +0000http://missionlocal.org/?p=309407
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]]>http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/snap-vanguard-rocking/feed/0309407Gunpoint Robbery on Harrison Street Monday Eveninghttp://missionlocal.org/2016/12/gunpoint-robbery-on-harrison-street-monday-evening/
http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/gunpoint-robbery-on-harrison-street-monday-evening/#respondTue, 06 Dec 2016 18:59:29 +0000http://missionlocal.org/?p=309417
A man was robbed at gunpoint Monday night in the Mission District, the second time a man was held up with a gun that day in the neighborhood. At 5:10 p.m., a 45-year-old man was walking on Harrison Street between 18th and 19th streets, by the Mission Cliffs gym, when he saw a man estimated to be between 18 and 20 years old cross the street. The 45-year-old kept walking but the suspect...]]>A man was robbed at gunpoint Monday night in the Mission District, the second time a man was held up with a gun that day in the neighborhood.

At 5:10 p.m., a 45-year-old man was walking on Harrison Street between 18th and 19th streets, by the Mission Cliffs gym, when he saw a man estimated to be between 18 and 20 years old cross the street. The 45-year-old kept walking but the suspect came up from behind him and asked for his phone.

The victim continued walking before the suspect pressed a handgun into him. When the victim saw the gun, he gave up his phone. The suspect fled and the police have not made an arrest.

]]>http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/gunpoint-robbery-on-harrison-street-monday-evening/feed/0309417SNAP: Goddess of 24th BART Plazahttp://missionlocal.org/2016/12/snap-goddess-of-24th-bart-plaza/
http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/snap-goddess-of-24th-bart-plaza/#respondTue, 06 Dec 2016 18:52:32 +0000http://missionlocal.org/?p=309401
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]]>http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/snap-goddess-of-24th-bart-plaza/feed/0309401Neighbors and Nuns Face Off Over Soup Kitchenhttp://missionlocal.org/2016/12/neighbors-organize-to-clean-up-mission-concerned-soup-kitchen-will-bring-blight/
http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/neighbors-organize-to-clean-up-mission-concerned-soup-kitchen-will-bring-blight/#commentsTue, 06 Dec 2016 15:00:13 +0000http://missionlocal.org/?p=309411
Residents in the northeastern Mission District are forming a community group to push local government toward ending homeless encampments in the area, while a pair of nuns displaced from the Tenderloin tries to gather support for a soup kitchen in the neighborhood that neighbors fear will only attract more homeless. The nuns are Marie Benedicte and Marie Valerie of the Fraternite Notre Dame Mary of Nazareth, and their appearance surprised...]]>Residents in the northeastern Mission District are forming a community group to push local government toward ending homeless encampments in the area, while a pair of nuns displaced from the Tenderloin tries to gather support for a soup kitchen in the neighborhood that neighbors fear will only attract more homeless.

The nuns are Marie Benedicte and Marie Valerie of the Fraternite Notre Dame Mary of Nazareth, and their appearance surprised even Andrew Presley, a resident of Natoma Street and one of the organizers of a neighborhood meeting on Monday night.

After facing a 60 percent rent increase last February at the Turk Street soup kitchen that the nuns operated for eight years, multimillionaire life-coach Tony Robbins stepped in to help, buying the ground-floor unit of a condo building at 1930 Mission St., located next door to the Navigation Center, a transitional shelter for the homeless.

But neighborhood opposition – primarily from other residents in the building – has stalled the soup kitchen from opening shop. On Monday night, they attended a meeting at a studio on 15th Street to form a neighborhood organization to clean up the Mission.

Presley told the neighbors that he coordinated a meeting on December 20 with the Mission’s newly elected supervisor Hillary Ronen, who will take office in January, and Jeff Kositsky, head of the Department on Homelessness and Supportive Housing, the agency heading the homeless encampment resolution efforts in the Mission. Neighbors would then have a chance to confront leaders with their concerns directly.

Gianina Serrano owns the confection shop Sixth Course, around the corner from the proposed soup kitchen and downstairs from Monday night’s meeting. She said that when she was approached last week by the nuns she supported their mission, and then invited them to the meeting.

The nuns are gathering signatures from local residents and businesses in support of their soup kitchen, which will be considered by the Planning Commission at a hearing next month. The soup kitchen, they said, is about taking care of the community.

“We don’t just feed the homeless – we feed low-income people, a family who is out of money at the end of the month,” said Sister Marie Benedicte. “If you provide them with food, maybe they can pay their rent, and they don’t arrive on the streets.”

The nuns listened intently as many neighbors wondered if a soup kitchen in the area would not only further lessen their quality of life by attracting more loitering to the already crime-ridden 16th and Mission street intersection, but also decrease property values in the area.

“We have invested our life’s saving in an apartment in this building,” said a resident of 1930 Mission St. “I have a hard time imagining that if we want to sell, we wouldn’t be losing a large amount of money.”

“Even though the soup kitchen is having a positive effect on the community, it’s just not an attractive business for the building,” the man added.

Since August, various city departments have collaborated in a concerted effort to clear the Mission of its sprawling homeless encampments – one by one, many tents have been dismantled and their inhabitants moved into temporary shelters.

But Presley and others say they have seen little progress. Rather, the grime and crime has been pushed to their doorsteps, they said. Now, the neighbors plan to form a neighborhood association of sorts, to press city leaders to take action.

“If anything, things are worsening,” said a neighbor who gave his name as Jeffrey. “I’d really like to know, how can we track the progress […] and who should we hold accountable throughout this process?”

“David Campos said in September that every tent would be gone in December,” said Presley, referring to a promise made by the Mission’s supervisor. Another resident, who gave his name as George, speculated that the Mission, in contrast to other neighborhoods, is a “containing ground” where street camping and criminal activity, to some extent, are tolerated.

Many of those present at the meeting said that they were not there to vilify the homeless. Rather, they complained of services being cut, a lack of shelter beds, as well as rampant drug use, feces and criminal activity on local sidewalks.

Neighbor Kelly Alberta said she has been confronted at knife-point close to her home, and criticized a laissez-faire approach by police when it comes to tackling crime in the area. “You have to wait for something to happen in order for somebody [to do something about it] – that’s troubling and that’s an issue.”

“We don’t want an attack on homelessness,” said Serrano. “I’ve seen it my whole life. I just want the city to help address this issue directly and do more of what needs to be done to really remedy the situation.”

After hearing their concerns, Sister Marie Benedicte pressed the neighbors to lead with compassion when addressing the homeless and disadvantaged in their neighborhood.

“When you love people, they change their ways,” she said. “If you reject them, that makes the situation worse,” she said.

Though some neighbors left before the meeting concluded, others said that the sister’s benevolence had swayed them to try a new, more compassionate approach to tackling homelessness.

“I was skeptical of the soup kitchen,” said neighbor Travis Bonnheim, adding that after hearing the nuns’ testimony, he is “fully supportive now.”

]]>http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/neighbors-organize-to-clean-up-mission-concerned-soup-kitchen-will-bring-blight/feed/1309411Futures Uncertain for Range and Pauline’s Pizza on Valenciahttp://missionlocal.org/2016/12/futures-uncertain-for-range-and-paulines-pizza-on-valencia/
http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/futures-uncertain-for-range-and-paulines-pizza-on-valencia/#respondTue, 06 Dec 2016 00:11:56 +0000http://missionlocal.org/?p=309388
Range restaurant is slated to close and Pauline’s Pizzeria is up for sale, according to local news. The San Francisco Chronicle reported today that Range, adjacent to Mission Playground, is set to close after 12 years. The restaurant’s owners told the paper that they are thinking of coming up with a new concept to better fit the street’s rapidly changing scene. Several blocks north, Capp Street Crap reports that Pauline’s Pizza,...]]>Range restaurant is slated to close and Pauline’s Pizzeria is up for sale, according to local news.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported today that Range, adjacent to Mission Playground, is set to close after 12 years. The restaurant’s owners told the paper that they are thinking of coming up with a new concept to better fit the street’s rapidly changing scene.

Several blocks north, Capp Street Crap reports that Pauline’s Pizza, a family-friendly neighborhood pizza mainstay, has been listed on Craigslist as for sale for $150,000.

]]>http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/futures-uncertain-for-range-and-paulines-pizza-on-valencia/feed/0309388Serial Trash Can Arson Suspect Arrested in SF Missionhttp://missionlocal.org/2016/12/alleged-serial-trash-can-arsonist-arrested-in-sf-mission/
http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/alleged-serial-trash-can-arsonist-arrested-in-sf-mission/#respondMon, 05 Dec 2016 22:20:55 +0000http://missionlocal.org/?p=309382
Mission Station police officers have arrested a 41-year-old man, Michael Boyle, in connection with a string of trash can fires and other arson incidents in the Mission and SoMa, according to an SFPD statement. The 11 fires, which occurred between late October and mid-November, were mostly set in sidewalk trash cans, though in one case, a fire was set inside the lobby of a bank and in another a tent was lit...]]>Mission Station police officers have arrested a 41-year-old man, Michael Boyle, in connection with a string of trash can fires and other arson incidents in the Mission and SoMa, according to an SFPD statement.

The 11 fires, which occurred between late October and mid-November, were mostly set in sidewalk trash cans, though in one case, a fire was set inside the lobby of a bank and in another a tent was lit on fire, which later ignited a car fire.

Boyle was arrested on Nov. 18 around 3 a.m. at 19th and Florida streets and booked at San Francisco County Jail on arson related charges. An Arson Task Force investigation led to his arrest, and investigators are still determining whether others are connected to the recent arsons.

Police encouraged anyone with information on the case to contact the SFPD Anonymous Tip Line at (415) 575-4444 or text-a-tip to TIP411 with SFPD at the beginning of the message.

]]>http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/alleged-serial-trash-can-arsonist-arrested-in-sf-mission/feed/0309382Man Robbed at Gunpoint on Capp Streethttp://missionlocal.org/2016/12/man-robbed-at-gunpoint-on-capp-street/
http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/man-robbed-at-gunpoint-on-capp-street/#respondMon, 05 Dec 2016 18:42:06 +0000http://missionlocal.org/?p=309378
A man was robbed by a trio of other men early Monday morning, the police report. The 34-year-old victim was walking near 19th and Capp streets at 3:39 a.m. when three men of unknown ages approached him. One of the suspects pointed a gun at the victim and demanded money. The suspect rifled through his pockets and stole a wallet and cash before the group of three left in a...]]>A man was robbed by a trio of other men early Monday morning, the police report. The 34-year-old victim was walking near 19th and Capp streets at 3:39 a.m. when three men of unknown ages approached him. One of the suspects pointed a gun at the victim and demanded money.

The suspect rifled through his pockets and stole a wallet and cash before the group of three left in a car westbound on 19th Street towards Mission Street. The victim was taken to the hospital for non-life threatening injuries, which were not described. No description of the car was given. The police have not made an arrest.

And on Sunday at 3:25 a.m., a man was robbed with a belt near 15th and Mission streets. The 28-year-old victim was hit with the belt by a man estimated to be 30 years old, who then took cash from the victim and fled in a car southbound on South Van Ness Avenue. No description of the car was given, and the police have not made an arrest.

]]>http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/man-robbed-at-gunpoint-on-capp-street/feed/0309378Video: SF Mission Homeless React to Tent Banhttp://missionlocal.org/2016/12/video-sf-missions-homeless-reacts-to-prop-q/
http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/video-sf-missions-homeless-reacts-to-prop-q/#respondMon, 05 Dec 2016 15:00:14 +0000http://missionlocal.org/?p=309085
Frustrations over San Francisco’s homeless encampments became palpable on November 8 when voters overwhelmingly supported Proposition Q, a ballot measure that allows city workers to clear the city’s sidewalks of tents with a 24-hour notice. The measure dictates that encampment residents forced to relocate are connected with shelter and storage for their personal property. But with not nearly enough housing or shelter beds to accommodate the city’s some 6,600 homeless – depending on...]]>Frustrations over San Francisco’s homeless encampments became palpable on November 8 when voters overwhelmingly supported Proposition Q, a ballot measure that allows city workers to clear the city’s sidewalks of tents with a 24-hour notice.

The measure dictates that encampment residents forced to relocate are connected with shelter and storage for their personal property. But with not nearly enough housing or shelter beds to accommodate the city’s some 6,600 homeless – depending on count criteria – many of those living in encampments in the Mission fear that they will again find themselves shuffled throughout the city, with no where to go.

]]>http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/video-sf-missions-homeless-reacts-to-prop-q/feed/0309085SF Mission Responds to Oakland’s Ghost Ship Firehttp://missionlocal.org/2016/12/sf-mission-responds-to-oaklands-ghost-ship-fire/
http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/sf-mission-responds-to-oaklands-ghost-ship-fire/#respondSun, 04 Dec 2016 19:40:29 +0000http://missionlocal.org/?p=309363
The arts community was hit hard by a fire in a converted Oakland artist live-work space known as the Ghost Ship that killed 24 on Friday, and some in the Mission have mobilized to give money, a couch to sleep on and other support to those affected. Gray Area, a theater and arts and education space, wrote online that some of the affected had worked at the nonprofit. In reaction,...]]>The arts community was hit hard by a fire in a converted Oakland artist live-work space known as the Ghost Ship that killed 24 on Friday, and some in the Mission have mobilized to give money, a couch to sleep on and other support to those affected.

Gray Area, a theater and arts and education space, wrote online that some of the affected had worked at the nonprofit.

In reaction, Gray Area immediately began fundraising for the victims in a campaign that has since surpassed $120,000. The arts foundation also held a vigil Saturday night to support those grieving the tragedy.

“We are inviting those in need of a safe space to come honor those affected by this tragedy and to receive and provide support,” the foundation wrote on its Facebook page Saturday. “We have been employers, supporters, of many of those who are missing.”

When an Oakland resident organized another online fundraiser and started a list of people around the Bay Area willing to help, at least three Mission residents signed on offering a place to sleep or meals, and especially support, to those who needed it.

Isaac Sherman, a Mission resident, was spurred to offer the couch in his living room.

“It’s just affecting the entire community and people I identify with, so it’s hard not to feel as if somebody I loved just died,” he said. “I am sitting here kind of just feeling helpless…it’s the least I can do.”

Jayinee Basu also opened up her home in the Mission to those in need.

“I offered up my place just in case there were folks who worked in the city and needed a place to crash—just a small thing to let people know they have community support when everything feels bleak and hopeless,” Basu wrote in an email. “My friends and I hang out in spaces like Ghost House often and it could have been any of us.”

Others in the neighborhood offered bedrooms, cooked meals, space to relax, even the company of a well-mannered cat.

Meanwhile, the community that spans the Bay continues to organize and fundraise as emergency crews work to pick apart the destroyed building piece by piece.

“This also represents the crunch we are all feeling on the lack of safe venues to support this type of music and art,” wrote Gray Area’s Josette Melchor in the fundraising campaign text. “Please care for each other right now.”

]]>http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/sf-mission-responds-to-oaklands-ghost-ship-fire/feed/0309363Developments in Development: Take a Breathhttp://missionlocal.org/2016/12/developments-in-development-take-a-breath/
http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/developments-in-development-take-a-breath/#respondSun, 04 Dec 2016 15:00:41 +0000http://missionlocal.org/?p=309360
It has been a week full of revelations on the housing front, but before I get into that, let’s take a moment to consider that rents have dipped, again. At least that is what Curbed reports based on an overview of realty sites’ estimates of asking rents at currently vacant apartments. Also, while fur often flies in the world of San Francisco housing and planning, opponents of market-rate housing and...]]>It has been a week full of revelations on the housing front, but before I get into that, let’s take a moment to consider that rents have dipped, again. At least that is what Curbed reports based on an overview of realty sites’ estimates of asking rents at currently vacant apartments.

Also, while fur often flies in the world of San Francisco housing and planning, opponents of market-rate housing and YIMBYs alike were finally able to agree on something. (A couple NIMBYs did show up, but where there are backyards, there are people telling you not to put things in them, so that was almost a given.) The project everyone liked? Senior housing at 1296 Shotwell.

And hey, if you gotta live in a teeny apartment because you can’t afford anything bigger but happen to have buckets of money left over for robot furniture, this company that makes shapeshifting robot furniture is planning a rollout (there’s a Transformers joke in there somewhere) in San Francisco in 2017. I know this company didn’t start in SF, but the idea that you might have enough money to buy a tiny studio and furnish it with enormous bed bots seems like such a San Francisco thing.

Like they said at the meeting: Everyone can pretty much agree the problem is the cost of renting or buying here. But there are still disagreements about how, exactly and specifically, that happened.

One contentious piece of that thematic puzzle has long been California’s Prop 13, which limits annual property tax increases. Trulia studied the effects of this on comparative effective tax rates. Basically, because of how much home prices have flown up in San Francisco and other expensive cities, long-time homeowners in San Francisco and Palo Alto are paying a lower “effective” tax rate than people who bought homes in less expensive areas a long time ago.

Not entirely surprising news, but Curbed put it in perspective for us: San Franciscan homeowners were collectively spared $447 million in taxes, just last year. Trulia also calculated that statewide, Prop 13 kept $12.5 billion in taxpayers’ pockets and out of California government’s hands last year.

Of course many also argue that housing costs are so high here because the region has not built very much in the last decades. Here is one (admittedly outlier) reason why some housing units in the Mission won’t get built: The vacant site where housing was planned was deemed historic and the project went from 28 to four units due to resulting building restrictions. Now, it’s gone down to zero.

Another about-face by Airbnb, this one from the East Coast: The homesharing platform dropped its lawsuit against a New York law that allows the city to impose fines on illegal Airbnbs, the New York Times reports. The catch is in who takes the fall for scofflaw short term rentals: NY agreed – as part of the settlement – to only go after hosts, and not Airbnb.

]]>http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/developments-in-development-take-a-breath/feed/0309360Owner of SF’s First Guatemalan Bakery Dieshttp://missionlocal.org/2016/12/owner-of-sfs-first-guatemalan-bakery-dies/
http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/owner-of-sfs-first-guatemalan-bakery-dies/#respondSun, 04 Dec 2016 15:00:38 +0000http://missionlocal.org/?p=309357
Manuel Barrientos, the proprietor of San Francisco’s first Guatemalan bakery, was 79 when he died on November 25, but for many, his vigor and dedication to his craft made his age difficult to gauge. When Barrientos was diagnosed with a brain tumor and given just three months to live, it was not his own death that he feared most, but his inability to work, said his son. “He took it...]]>Manuel Barrientos, the proprietor of San Francisco’s first Guatemalan bakery, was 79 when he died on November 25, but for many, his vigor and dedication to his craft made his age difficult to gauge.

When Barrientos was diagnosed with a brain tumor and given just three months to live, it was not his own death that he feared most, but his inability to work, said his son.

“He took it bad, because he wanted to keep working,” said the youngest of Barrientos’ three sons, David.

Even during his final days, Barrientos could be found at Panaderia Universal, the mom-and-pop bakery and restaurant run by him and his family for some two decades at 30th and Mission streets, greeting his customers and making bread for his community.

Manuel Barrientos, owner of Panaderia Universal, died on November 25 at age 79. Photo Courtesy of David Barrientos.

Every day, the Daly City resident would go “from his house straight to the bakery,” said Sofia Keck, owner of Los Shucos Latin Hot Dogs, a Guatemalan street food restaurant at 22nd and Mission streets.

In 2014, as Keck was searching for a Guatemalan baker with expertise in artisan bread before launching Los Shucos, she fought hard to convince Barrientos to take her on as a client.

“He was hesitant,“ said Keck. “In the end, he didn’t do it because he needed the extra money – he did it because he wanted to help me.”

Barrientos and his wife visited Los Shucos once before it opened for business. Inside the store, he invited Keck and her son to join him in prayer.

“He was a very religious man,” said Keck.

The radio at Panaderia Universal was usually tuned to a Catholic station.

Those who knew Barrientos agree that he was fiercely focused on two things – his work and his family. On most days, the two coexisted in the same space because running Panaderia Universal was a family affair that involved all of Barrientos’ sons and his wife, Vilma.

“Walking into the bakery, you’d see David manning the register,” said Keck. “The others would be in the back making the bread.”

David described his father as exemplary of the “American Dream,” sacrificing his own needs for his work, and later, for his family.

“He wasn’t scared of working. Any laziness, he took it out of you,” said David. “At the same time, I have never seen a man treat a woman the way he treated my mother. He wouldn’t even eat until she was there.”

Coming from a “long line of bakers” in Guatemala, David said, his father first began working in a bakery at age 5.

“He didn’t have a childhood,” he said.

At age 11, Barrientos ran away from home, according to his son, to escape his abusive father. It was his father’s work ethic, David said, that not only helped him to survive, but kept him out of trouble.

After trying his hand at various businesses in Guatemala, Barrientos immigrated to San Jose in his 30s, where he picked fruit for a month before making his way to San Francisco to work at the Fairmont Hotel.

But Barrientos’ passion for baking and for his Guatemalan culture never left him. Finding the latter to be lacking representation in San Francisco, Barrientos decided to open a business that would blend both.

“He felt people needed something from back home, and there weren’t many businesses that represented us at the time,” said David.”

In 1982, Barrientos began baking Champurradas – cookies typical to Guatemala – out of the kitchen of a former employer at 24th and Potrero streets. He then sold the cookies door to door – driving routes that took him on deliveries as far as Mountain View.

“He and my mother both had a route – It was a team effort, that’s how they started,” said David, adding that the budding business, coupled with his day job, often had his father working 18 hour days.

Some eight years later, the lease of the storefront that served as Barrientos’ makeshift bakery eventually fell into his hands, enabling him to open his first business and San Francisco’s first authentic Guatemalan bakery – on 24th Street.

“That’s what motivated him,” said David. “There was nothing authentic from his country here.”

But just as his bakery took off, a fire displaced Barrientos from the 24th and Potrero location in 1995, forcing him to reopen Panaderia Universal at 3458 Mission St.

The move proved a beneficial as the new location came with a kitchen space, allowing Barrientos to expand into a full-fledged Guatemalan restaurant.

And his customers from in and outside of the Guatemalan community willingly followed.

“He left a great legacy. Not just with his business, but with his family,” said Keck. The doors at Los Shucos have been locked for the past week – the business remains closed out of respect for Barrientos and his family.

Upon reopening, Keck said she will continue to source her bread from Panaderia Universal.

“Even though our bread is made at Panaderia Universal because we don’t have the kitchen space, he always said that was our bread – Los Shucos bread,” said Keck.

As for Panaderia Universal, Barrientos’ sons – and perhaps, one day his five grand children – will continue to carry on Barrientos’ legacy. Although perhaps they will work a little less.

“One thing he told us is, ‘Don’t follow my example,” said David. “Don’t work all the time.”

The Burial service for Manuel Barrientos will be on Sunday, December 4, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Cypress Lawn Funeral Home at 1370 El Camino Real in Colma.

]]>http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/owner-of-sfs-first-guatemalan-bakery-dies/feed/0309357After CA Legalizes Weed, Local Dealers Brace to Competehttp://missionlocal.org/2016/12/after-ca-legalizes-weed-local-dealers-brace-to-compete/
http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/after-ca-legalizes-weed-local-dealers-brace-to-compete/#commentsSat, 03 Dec 2016 15:00:45 +0000http://missionlocal.org/?p=309267
When it comes to doing business, Leaf isn’t discrete. The friendly 25-year-old saunters around Dolores Park in San Francisco with a big teddy bear on his shoulder and a ring of plastic marijuana leaves around his neck. You can’t miss him. Selling weed is his game, one he won’t quit anytime soon. Yes, recreational cannabis was just legalized in California on Nov. 8, heralding a new era of pot consumption...]]>When it comes to doing business, Leaf isn’t discrete. The friendly 25-year-old saunters around Dolores Park in San Francisco with a big teddy bear on his shoulder and a ring of plastic marijuana leaves around his neck. You can’t miss him.

Selling weed is his game, one he won’t quit anytime soon. Yes, recreational cannabis was just legalized in California on Nov. 8, heralding a new era of pot consumption in America’s most populated state. But he’s not worried.

“I’ll still be out here, because what happens when you don’t want to go out to the club?” Leaf said of recreational dispensaries. “It’s about convenience, and I always have stuff on me. I’m right here.”

Many Bay Area dealers like Leaf – whose full name has been withheld to protect his identity – are confident that they can compete with the onslaught of pot clubs that will open in the wake of Proposition 64’s passing. That’s because their informally sold, tax-free goods are cheaper than anything that will be sold legally.

This has proven true in other places that have legalized marijuana. Experts say the black market is alive and well in Colorado and Washington, and there’s little reason to believe that California will be any different. If there’s still money to be made underground – and as long as it costs upwards of $500,000 to open a pot club – it’s likely that dealers will keep up the hustle.

“Typically, dealers are not looking at legalization and saying, ‘Where do we go next?,’ said Francisco Gallardo, who helps young men of color escape gang violence in Denver. “They’re thinking, ‘I’m going to make the most money I can until the market don’t bear it anymore.’”

Still, there are some dealers who want to go legal, even with the odds stacked against them. And then there are those who might leave for states with greener pastures; states that haven’t legalized, that is.

The excise tax and the black market

According to Prop. 64, recreational — or as some pot gurus call it, “inspirational” — pot products at state-licensed shops will carry a 15 percent excise tax on top of regular sales tax; municipalities can charge additional taxes. A levy will also be imposed on licensed cultivators.

This is all to say that legal weed, because of its hefty taxation, will be pricier than what you can buy off the so-called black market. In Colorado and Washington, the price differential has motivated many weed consumers – especially those who can’t afford dispensary premiums – to stick with the illegal stuff, even if it puts them at risk of arrest.

“A lot of your traditional pot smokers say, ‘I already have a guy’ when it’s legalized. They trust their dealers,” said Brian Yauger, president of Front Runner, a business intelligence company for the legalized cannabis industry.

To some extent, you get what you pay for, Gallardo said. You can peruse strains with varying potencies and effects at a dispensary. Yet price reigns supreme.
“They could care less what it is,” Gallardo said of those in Colorado who continue to buy from dealers. “If it fires them up, they’re all good.”

In a report released by Front Runner in July, economists estimated that 34 percent of the pot sold in Washington is illegal. “Although the average consumer would prefer to purchase legally, given the price sensitivity, there is little to no incentive to convert away from the black market,” economist Beau Whitney writes in the report.

Without local and sales taxes figured in, Washington’s excise tax on marijuana sits at 37 percent, more than double California’s proposed rate. Learning from other states’ mistakes, ballot initiatives across the United States now propose rates between 10 and 25 percent.

Still, experts say the black markets in California and Washington have weakened since legalization. As larger grows have come online, pot club prices have dropped a bit, making them more competitive with dealers, Gallardo said.

It remains to be seen how California’s tax on marijuana – which is expected to bring in annual revenue of $1 billion – will influence underground sales. And we don’t know how much towns and cities will tack onto the price with local taxes. But it’s clear that the closer California’s pot clubs can get to street prices, the more the black market will shrink, Yauger explained.

“People will pay the extra dollar or two for something that is tested or proved,” Yauger said of regulated marijuana. “But they won’t pay double.”

Still money to be made

Some California dealers are paying attention to Prop. 64, and what has played out in other states. Others are hanging on and hoping for the best.

And then there are those who want to go legal, but find the paperwork, regulation and costs daunting.

Two dealers in San Francisco – Leaf, and another called Rolando – expect their cash flow to remain strong if recreational marijuana is legalized. Leaf said he makes about $5,000 a month, half of which goes to his mom. Rolando, 30, would only say that he brings in “quite enough.”

Although both are willing to bet that they will stay afloat, Rolando and Leaf have different views on legalization. Rolando, who also grows, said he never intends to go. He knows what pot goes for at the clubs, and he knows he can compete on the street with much lower overhead costs.

“A registered retailer has no way to sell the product for a good price. And I know how to sell it out here, ” he said, later adding, “I don’t want to pay taxes, or pay the monthly rent.”

Rolando also sells cocaine, LSD and MDMA providing some extra financial security. And those under 21 will still want weed after legalization, he said. He’ll hook them up.

Leaf, on the other hand, seesaws between wanting to open his own shop and using legalization to his advantage on the street. Because he mainly sells at Dolores Park — often to tourists – he expects his business will take some sort of hit once recreational dispensaries open up.

But Leaf still fully supports legalization, in part because he’s been busted by police several times for selling. He keeps going back to the game, because that’s what he knows. But his real passion is Hip Hop, and his weed sales finance his fledging music career.

Leaf expects police will pay less attention to him once cannabis is legal, even though his enterprise isn’t licensed. “Making less money for a little less hassle by the cops – man, I’m down for that,” he said.

Photo by Laura Newberry

But Gallardo said for minorities like Leaf, that may not be the case. In Denver, weed is still being used to target people of color, he explained. Police can still employ probable cause to search inner cities for illegal cannabis grows and sales, Gallardo said, and at disproportionate rates.

A related problem is that weed dispensaries tend to be owned by affluent white people, Gallardo added. So Leaf’s goal of opening a pot club one day may be, well, a pipe dream. He brings in around $60,000 a year right now, but that’s not nearly enough. It costs about $500,000 to $1 million to start up a pot club, Yauger said.

“I almost feel bad for the black market growers and dealers who fought and fought and fought for legalization,” he went on. “Then it becomes legal, and because they didn’t have the backing or the money for the facilities they don’t stand a chance.”

Another dealer, who goes by Keith, also wants to go legal. After years of selling in North Carolina, the 30-year-old moved to Oakland when he realized most of his supply was coming from the Bay Area. He decided to cut out the middleman.
Keith’s goal was go grow, farm, and sell to medical marijuana dispensaries here. But the associated costs and regulatory hoops overwhelmed him.
He also tried to get an Oakland permit for extracting and selling cannabis concentrates, but the process was too complicated, he said.

Then Keith was convicted of two felonies after being caught with three pounds of marijuana in his car. He says he was transporting the goods between a legal grow operation and a dispensary. Now, most of Keith’s money is made from buying marijuana in bulk from Northern California’s “Emerald Triangle” and shipping it to other states. North Carolina and Florida are his big ones.

Keith says he could make $20,000 on a good month. Until weed is legalized across the United States, he can count on that business.
But the out-of-state money isn’t worth the risk, Keith said, and he will keep trying to go legal. His goal it to produce cannabidiol, or CBD, pills for cancer patients. The capsules won’t get you high, but do treat pain and nausea. “I want to have a company where I hire people, pay taxes,” Keith said. “Something I can be proud of, you know?”

Theo, a 64-year-old, has a much smaller sales radius than Keith. The veteran deals only at San Francisco’s Hippie Hill, as he has done for 15 years. He’s against legalization, as he thinks it will cause his business to dry up.

But Theo isn’t stressing. If his sales go south, he says, so will he – to states where his product isn’t regulated.

“I’ll go someplace else. There’s more states in the world that I can go to,” he said as he pet his beard, his eyes shining beneath weathered eyelids. “And everybody on Earth smokes weed.”

Liliana Michelena also contributed to this story.

]]>http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/after-ca-legalizes-weed-local-dealers-brace-to-compete/feed/2309267Man Pleads Not Guilty to Killing Public Works Employeehttp://missionlocal.org/2016/12/man-pleads-not-guilty-to-killing-public-works-employee/
http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/man-pleads-not-guilty-to-killing-public-works-employee/#respondSat, 03 Dec 2016 01:52:30 +0000http://missionlocal.org/?p=309350
The Bay City News reported on Friday that Michael Higginbotham, the 26-year-old man charged with shooting and killing an employee of the Department of Public Works earlier this week, has plead not guilty to the murder. Higginbotham was arraigned in court in Friday and charged with murder, according to Bay City News. His publicly-appointed attorney said there were no witnesses to the shooting and that the Public Defender’s Office would be...]]>The Bay City News reported on Friday that Michael Higginbotham, the 26-year-old man charged with shooting and killing an employee of the Department of Public Works earlier this week, has plead not guilty to the murder.

Higginbotham was arraigned in court in Friday and charged with murder, according to Bay City News. His publicly-appointed attorney said there were no witnesses to the shooting and that the Public Defender’s Office would be looking at video evidence, the wire service wrote.

He will have a continued arraignment hearing next week on December 9 and was being held in jail with bail at $5 million, Bay City News wrote.

Higginbotham was charged with the murder of Jermaine Jackson Jr., a 27-year-old man working on a graffiti crew for Public Works at the corner of 25th and Vermont streets.

Jackson had been involved in a city anti-violence program and got his GED before working as an apprentice for Public Works. Friends who arrived on the scene immediately following the shooting wept at the news and said Jackson was a committed father hoping to turn his life around.

Flowers, candles, hand written notes and parts of a Public Works uniform mark the spot where Jermaine Jackson Jr. was gunned down on November 30. Photo by Lola M. Chavez.

]]>http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/man-pleads-not-guilty-to-killing-public-works-employee/feed/0309350Shrunken Mission Project Eliminates Housing Unitshttp://missionlocal.org/2016/12/shrunken-mission-project-eliminates-housing-units/
http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/shrunken-mission-project-eliminates-housing-units/#respondSat, 03 Dec 2016 00:27:16 +0000http://missionlocal.org/?p=309326
What may have been the most expensive development purchase in San Francisco in 2014 — to replace a shuttered auto shop in the Mission District — has eliminated all of its housing units, going from 28 units to none within two years. The parcel at 3140 16th St., the former Superior Automotive shop, was acquired by Mx3 Ventures in 2014 for $8.7 million, or about $350,000 per planned market-rate unit. The...]]>What may have been the most expensive development purchase in San Francisco in 2014 — to replace a shuttered auto shop in the Mission District — has eliminated all of its housing units, going from 28 units to none within two years.

The parcel at 3140 16th St., the former Superior Automotive shop, was acquired by Mx3 Ventures in 2014 for $8.7 million, or about $350,000 per planned market-rate unit. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that per-unit cost as “likely the most expensive development site ever sold” in the city at the time, evidence of the desperation of developers to snatch up the precious few remaining lots in the Mission District.

Curbed SF, which first reported the elimination of the project’s housing units, wrote that developers planned to use both stories of the original building for a restaurant and construct a roof deck on top.

In July, the project faced a financial hurdle when the city deemed the 1926 building historic. The decision meant developers would have to maintain the original building, and they announced they would slash their unit count from 28 to just four to do so.

That downsizing resulted in a new per-unit cost of $2.2 million. Project sponsors did not return requests for comment, so it’s not clear whether that new cost pushed them to eliminate the units altogether in favor of a non-housing project. A multi-million dollar sticker price per unit may have made it impossible for a residential building to pencil out financially.

]]>http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/shrunken-mission-project-eliminates-housing-units/feed/0309326Valencia Shops Host Holiday Cookie Crawlhttp://missionlocal.org/2016/12/valencia-shops-host-holiday-cookie-crawl/
http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/valencia-shops-host-holiday-cookie-crawl/#respondFri, 02 Dec 2016 20:26:21 +0000http://missionlocal.org/?p=309312
Merchants along Valencia Street have once again organized a holiday cookie crawl down the street, and are offering holiday deals as well as sweet treats on Saturday, Dec 3. Proceeds from cookie sales will go to 826 Valencia. Here’s a list of participating businesses and what they have in store for holiday shoppers: Dijital Fix Mission Bicycle Co. – Free gift wrap (custom holiday bicycle paper) with purchases over $40. Five...]]>Merchants along Valencia Street have once again organized a holiday cookie crawl down the street, and are offering holiday deals as well as sweet treats on Saturday, Dec 3. Proceeds from cookie sales will go to 826 Valencia.

Here’s a list of participating businesses and what they have in store for holiday shoppers:

Betabrand – Santa The Hutt photobooth has returned! Stop by to take a picture, sip some cider, and, of course, crunch on a cookie — on the house! Merry-makers can expect to receive a 20% discount on any in-store purchase.

Colleen Marie Mauer – Serving delicious macaroons and wine throughout the day and offering 10% off all purchases from The Ring Bar.

]]>http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/valencia-shops-host-holiday-cookie-crawl/feed/0309312Public’s Help Sought After Hit-and-Run Injures Mission Cyclisthttp://missionlocal.org/2016/12/publics-help-sought-after-hit-and-run-injures-mission-cyclist/
http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/publics-help-sought-after-hit-and-run-injures-mission-cyclist/#respondFri, 02 Dec 2016 19:32:20 +0000http://missionlocal.org/?p=309311
A cyclist suffered critical injuries after she was hit by a Mini Cooper near 23rd Street and Potrero Avenue on November 29 – the driver fled the scene, according to friends and family, who have turned to the public for help in locating the vehicle and its occupants. SF!!! Help me catch the hit & run BASTARD that seriously injured @Danes7387! DM ME with ANY information. pic.twitter.com/HYqWl20sIX — AnnaGrace Arnold (@AnnaGrace_A) December 1, 2016 Anna...]]>A cyclist suffered critical injuries after she was hit by a Mini Cooper near 23rd Street and Potrero Avenue on November 29 – the driver fled the scene, according to friends and family, who have turned to the public for help in locating the vehicle and its occupants.

Anna Grace Arnold, a friend of 29-year-old cyclist Dana Cray Fernie – who was treated at San Francisco General hospital for a major concussion, a laceration to the head, road rash and bruising – turned to Twitter to describe Tuesday night’s incident in the hopes of alerting the public.

Fernie was reportedly riding along Potrero Avenue between 22nd and 23rd streets – directly in front of General Hospital – sometime between 10:15 p.m. and 10:27 p.m. when she was hit by a dark blue, late model Mini Cooper. The vehicle’s side mirror broke off in the collision, according Arnold.

Fernie was released from the hospital on Wednesday and is recovering from her injuries, but the driver remains at large. Community members are asked to report sightings of the vehicle to the police or to contact Arnold directly on Twitter.

]]>http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/publics-help-sought-after-hit-and-run-injures-mission-cyclist/feed/0309311Safe Injection Sites for Drug Users in Shelters Get Health Department Nodhttp://missionlocal.org/2016/12/safe-injection-sites-for-drug-users-in-shelters-get-health-department-nod/
http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/safe-injection-sites-for-drug-users-in-shelters-get-health-department-nod/#commentsFri, 02 Dec 2016 15:00:21 +0000http://missionlocal.org/?p=309306
Sites where drug users can safely inject or where alcoholics’ consumption is regulated received a warmer than expected endorsement at a hearing Thursday afternoon about progress toward the city’s six Navigation Centers. While the expansion of navigation centers, like the rest of the city’s budget, is running up against a shortfall the Department of Public Health appears to have warmed to the idea of safe consumption sites. The idea of...]]>Sites where drug users can safely inject or where alcoholics’ consumption is regulated received a warmer than expected endorsement at a hearing Thursday afternoon about progress toward the city’s six Navigation Centers.

While the expansion of navigation centers, like the rest of the city’s budget, is running up against a shortfall the Department of Public Health appears to have warmed to the idea of safe consumption sites.

The idea of helping homeless people who struggle with addiction at supervised sites was written into a city mandate requiring no fewer than six Navigation Centers by mid-2018. The mandate was authored by Supervisor David Campos and approved by the Board of Supervisors, but the proposal met with strong disagreement from the Mayor at the time.

At Thursday’s meeting, Barbara Garcia, the director of the Department of Public Health, expressed support for including such sites or beginning to incorporate supervised consumption into existing harm reduction infrastructure – pending state legislative permission to do so.

“We do believe that that is worth pursuing,” she said in reference to safe consumption sites. “We have a public health responsibility to ensure that these individuals are safe and getting services.”

She estimated to have a real impact, the city would need to establish some six safe injection sites, at a cost of $3 to $3.5 million each.

Federal prohibitions on consumption of controlled substances put city service providers who allow such consumption at risk of law enforcement, said Laura Thomas, who works with the national Drug Policy Alliance.

At the hearing, she explained that the Alliance supported state-level legislation last year that would allow municipalities to permit such sites, but the legislation was rejected in committee. If such legislation is approved on the Alliance’s second attempt to foster it, an effort which would be greatly aided by municipalities showing their support for safe injection sites, San Francisco may move forward.

Campos had called the hearing to check in on the city’s progress in building a total of six of the alternative shelters following concerns that a shortage of shelter beds has slowed down the process of clearing out homeless encampments around the city.

“What keeps me up at night is the fact that, as we’re trying to resolve encampments we’re running out of beds, places to send people, so what are we going to do?” Campos wanted to know.

San Francisco has some 1,300 shelter beds, but anywhere between 6,600 and 10,000 homeless people, not all of whom necessarily live on the streets. There are about 900 people on the waitlist to enter the city’s shelter system.

Jeff Kositsky, who heads the city’s Department of Homelessness, said the legislation requiring new Navigation Centers would not alleviate the need entirely but is a start.

“It’s great to have wind at our backs in terms of that at least we know we’re going to add another 500 to 600 beds based on this legislation,” he said. “It is less than what we need, but it is an important start.”